characters design & lowPoly

[renderhjs]

I created a new thread for this one (a adventure game in Flash about colors) - as the other one was more focused on technical archivements. In short the engine uses 3d objects combined with pre- rendered backgrounds.
In this thread I want to share some design processes by me and my other team members (a team by 3 students) regarding the project.

As pointed out earlier it will be about adventure where colors will play a main role. The main character is a younger girl that has a limited eye-sight she cannot see all colors in her environment- but she can kind of learn to see her missing colors. Today I have been designing a few main character designs

these 2 are colored pencil drawings (scanned 300ppi) in Photoshop with a tablet mostly with solid colors wich makes it easier to adjust the colors (PS> ctrl+u) and to find ones color tones. The game starts in less colorfull environments hence their modest colors.
I plan to unveil more and more designs and workflows in this thread as the project evolves- wich will explain perhaps afterwards why certain things were done in a certain way, like the colors of the eyes- and what´s behind it.

While the performance of the 3d engine changes from time to time (some builds faster, other ones slower). I plan a overal triangle count of 300 for each important character (a scene would have about 900-1200). So I tried creating 1 of the girl designs as a 300 triangle Mesh. A great inspiration on how to reduce the polycount was this thread on polycount.com. Here is what I have so far:

demo
note that the textures are not yet complete- right now this character is not final she could eventual change next time.

[luxregina]

it's funny : when I was a student, I had a very similar project in concept : 2 kids, a girl around 10 and her little brother would live in a cemented world where everyhting is black and white - after rescuing some sort of (colorful) feary, they would be granted access to the kingdom of Quadrichromia where they would discover colors, but also interact with Key NPCs that would all teach the user (kids) about various components in photography, painting, etc ...
I'll try to dig for some concept arts if I can find them ...but your topic seems very similar... I think it's a nice topic, obviously

[luxregina]

not been very lucky diggig for concepts, but here's the two characters : Chleophe ( after a "make-up experience" in Quadrichromia ) and Nichols, experiencing butterflies ...



and some concept of who would be the Queen of Quadrichromia :



Obviously, I was researching different "paint" styles, the first one ( very kid friendly ) is the one that ultimatly made it ...

Sorry, i'm a little off-topic, but I thought it was funny that both projects were kinda related, eventhough separated by 10 years

[phreax]

Besides from the poor girl in the demo being flat-faced I am utterly impressed by what can be achieved with such a low polycount! Your concepts are also really good.

[X-Tender]

it's funny : when I was a student, I had a very similar project in concept : 2 kids, a girl around 10 and her little brother would live in a cemented world where everyhting is black and white [..]

/ .. That sounds pretty similar to a game I'am currently developing, but with a boy and his younger Sister (or girlfriend, not sure yet). an 2D Platformer/Jump n Run. The Girl move by her own through the world. And the Boy can give her "commands" to help him.

@Topic.
Like the Conept Arts, but I hope that you will spend a little bit more time on the Model (well you said it too that it can change )
I don't like the Hair, looks like a Helmet, not like the fluffy hairs on the drawings.
And please spend some Polygons and give her a Nose! (Well, that depends maybe how big the player will see her in the game, but currently it just looks like alien from the side ) [ARGH TO SLOW! ]

Great work so far, as usual.

[tomsamson]

yes,from the side she looks a bit weird but from the front i like her a lot

[rachil0]

Really great!

That link you posted was fantastic. Some of those models are super detailed and curvy for such low poly count, every vertex looks painstakingly placed.

What's a good free package for getting into low polygon 3D modeling? Can blender do that kind of stuff?

[ColbyCheeze]

I like it, she looks cell shaded which is cool. I really am not a big fan of 3d though for the most part, I think 2D games feel much better and look better as well save for a few games like...mario 64 was a great looking game.

Is her face supposed to be flat or is that just until you get it modeled out more or whatever?

[Ray Beez]

it gives me flashbacks to.... Flashback! or Out of This World. You could have a fully detailed nice background, and then overlay a 3D character on top...

[renderhjs]

@luxregina: how old makes you that then , I do not have fairytale planes (more sci-fi stuff) but the sketches look very adoreable

@X-Tender: dont have much freeroom as I am limited on what I can display with just 300 triangles. Perhaps I´ll could remove some of her back hair and invest them to make a nose- though I dont think that I will close ups in the game.
Is it really that slow running on your computer?

@rachil0: blender is capeable of such,- but industry veterans usually commercial packages such as 3dsMax, Maya, Lightwave, Silo or Modo. Max is certainly the package with the most tutorials for low poly modeling (not maya´s strength so far)

@ColbyCheeze: I am not a fan of the 3d hype (the reason why I never touched papervision for example so far). But I hope to archive something personal with this- its not a complete 3d attempt but rather a mix of 2d and 3d tricks like camera mapping.

it gives me flashbacks to.... Flashback! or Out of This World. You could have a fully detailed nice background, and then overlay a 3D character on top...

excatly what I am planning,- see this tech demo on that attempt.

[X-Tender]

@luxregina@X-Tender
Is it really that slow running on your computer?

With slow i mean that my post was to slow because phreax wrote about the nose thing
Performance ist great

[luxregina]

@luxregina: how old makes you that then

That make me 34 School is way behind me now!

Forgot to add that it was working flawlessly, and with no hickup, but my config at home is way above the average, so take it with a grain of salt

[Flashkit]

that lowpoly thread is fantastic render, it inspired me so much that you got me downloading the 3d max trial to play for myself!

I'm enjoying following your 3d threads and demos too. Really impressive stuff.

[Alluvian]

Maybe instead of trying for a nose, make the face into 2 surfaces at a rather obtuse angle with the vertex at the nose?

Like the concept art very much and I am glad you picked the example on the right, which I like just slightly more than the left one.

Will your game be playable for colorblind people? I find so many games that require correct color vision to play that I get frustrated a lot. I don't have black and white colorblindness, but I have all of the three more common types to a greater or lesser degree. (serious problems with purple/blue, brown/red, green/yellow, etc...) Among men, color blindness of some sort is relatively common.


Edit:: just reread that and it sounded more critical than I intended. I think what you have so far looks GREAT. I was just making a totally uninformed suggestion, heh. Great work, your university team is so lucky to have you on their side.

[Incrue]

I am not a fan of the 3d hype (the reason why I never touched papervision for example so far)

Your stuff is better them any papervision example i have seem, what do YOU need papervision for?

[ryanp321]

They're some real nice designs.

[Ray Beez]

exactly what I am planning,- see this tech demo

OH! Alone in the Dark! Even better. :-)

[Kianis]

I was disappointed when I tried to look under her skirt : (
Looking great as always render!

[renderhjs]

@luxregina: that makes you 10 years older than me thouhgt you were more around my age

@Flashkit: I´d be more than happy sharing more 3dsmax stuff in this forum,- I have lots of experiments with maxscript for flash tasks (rendering sprites, animating, writing xml/ binary,...)

@ Alluvian not for colorblind people,- 1 aim is to show the contrast between colorfull and not- if you are colorblind it looks somewhat equal to you- that wouldn´t make sense.

@Incrue: thx,- but my code complexity and quality can´t be compared at all- its more that I know how to cheat on the visual side

@Kianis: what did you expext,- pantsu kudasai?

a new nose was added out of 3 triangles and I added some more hair details even though the character now has 14 triangles less than before
some new screenshots from 3dsmax:

I updated mainly the texture with some art nouveau styled flowers and some bags on her hips so that she can pick up items and hold them.

this is how it looks in the engine (added a outline effect, similar to many japanese anime games):

the demo2

[phreax]

that's it render, you're fired! I mean hired! I mean, it looks awesome! I would still work a bit on the profile/chin but the nose did her good and the hair made her look more vivid! The model looks so close to the concept that I didn't realise it was the model at first, so good job!